Timothy

-exactly thirteen days later-

When the phone rang in the middle of the night, every occupant of every bed in Wayne Manor was up and dashing towards the nearest phone before it could ring for the third time.

Tim had thrown his door open and ran to where Bruce was already standing, accepting grudgingly that he hadn't just dreamed. Bruce and Alfred had installed a special ring tone if Leslie or the hospital called, and Tim was pretty sure that every member of the household had had his fair share of nightmares about it over the past months. Tim had found himself standing in the threshold of his room various times in the dark, blinking and listening to the silence.

He was always thankful when realized that he only dreamed, but now, as he jogged towards Bruce and heard Alfred coming up behind him, Damian coming from the other direction, every hope about bad but realistic dreams were getting ridiculous.

Something was wrong with Dick.

There was only one reason why the phone was ringing in the middle of the night with that ring tone.

After weeks of silent nights and steady recovery, things had taken a turn for the worse recently. Dick had developed a fever, low at first, but steadily rising. His immune system was still not working properly and overreacted at every opportunity, so fevers weren't rare but scarcely rose to dangerous temperatures. Yesterday, though, Leslie had looked critically at the thermometer and expressed worry. Obviously, she had been right.

"Yes?" Bruce growled into the receiver without greeting, making Tim wince. "Leslie?"

Oh God, something was really wrong; Leslie's shift should have ended hours ago. Tim could feel his intestines freezing over. Bruce's face was blanching as he listened, making Tim's worst fear palpable – Bruce didn't just pale. Something bad must be going on; the worst thing Timothy could think of was the innocent looking but utterly terrible word relapse.

Bruce disconnected with a grunt and immediately turned to rush back to his room. "We need to get to Dick," he gritted out between clenched teeth, "quick."

"What happened?!" Tim asked, rooted to the spot.

Bruce turned to him with a pained expression. "I don't know. Leslie just ordered all of us to the intensive care unit."

Thanks to years of vigilantism and trained movements, the four of them were dressed and rushed into the car in only a few minutes. Tim tried to ignore how badly his hands shook and concentrated on Alfred instead, who steered the car swiftly but calmly. Jeez, the composure of this man.

Damian was white like a ghost and stared out of the car window, probably not seeing any of the scenery outside, while Bruce kept staring at the mobile phone in his hands as if hypnotizing it not to ring.

The next moment, Alfred stopped the car right in front of the hospital. Tim blinked up at the building, wondering how they could possibly be here already. He must have zoned out, but when he tried to reconstruct his thoughts, he came up blank.

Bruce pushed him forward, suddenly, and Tim shook the confusion away and followed the others through the hospital hallways. They knew the way by heart by now; cancer unit, radiation unit, the way to the floor closed for maintenance that had served as Dick's secret treatment room for so long, isolation unit, ICU. The last three letters were looming in front of him ominously, and with sweaty hands and a pounding heart, Tim walked through the door.

It was in the middle of the night, so the one room filled with movement wasn't hard to find. The green light that indicated the presence of a nurse was buzzing, and various voices, Leslie's among them, were audible through the closed door.

Tim swallowed the lump in his throat that developed when he thought about the word 'relapse' and reached for the door handle, but then hurrying steps turned his attention towards an approaching nurse.

She was making her way to the same room with swift steps, eyeing the small crowd in front of the door warily.

"You're here for Richard Grayson?" She asked curtly, and Bruce affirmed her suspicion.

The nurse nodded, told them to wait for a second longer, and then pulled out a white paper mask she wrapped over her mouth and nose, and disappeared inside the room.

Tim's insides froze over instantly.

An infection mask.

Just like during Dick's early remission, when his immune system had been brought down by the chemo and every germ could kill him. When the fever was raging through his body because every infection could spread freely and his immune system wasn't working at all.

Dick had been feverish, his temperature rising. His immune system was spewing out leukocytes uncontrollably again, even though he was still under heavy immunosuppressive drugs to prevent just that.

Relapse.

The minuscule possibility had come true; some cancerous cells had survived in a place where chemotherapy and radiation hadn't had optimal access to, maybe the spinal canal, and triggered a new outbreak.

Oh God and they couldn't just get back to Amelia and ask for her marrow, and what were the chances of Dick surviving another round of this torture?

A touch made Tim emerge from his dark thoughts with a jolt – the door had opened again and Damian had grabbed his hand. Tim stared down at their hands dumbstruck, but before he could choose how to react, Leslie had closed the door again and turned towards them, ripping her mask away from her face.

Subconsciously, they all had taken a few steps back, even Bruce, so Leslie had to walk up to them while she scrunched up the mask in her hands. Tim's shell-shocked mind only slowly registered the look on her face, which was one of complete and utter wrath.

Wrath?

Tim had barely time to think about how that really wasn't an adequate reaction to a relapse, when Leslie exploded in front of them.

"What the hell were you idiots thinking!?" she bellowed, obviously not caring that the rest of the intensive care unit was asleep. "What part of 'loss of acquired immunity' didn't you get?!"

Tim was still too confused to act, but Bruce had opened his mouth to interfere, only to be interrupted by a furious Leslie, who pushed a … plastic back full of brown hair into his face? What?

"Who brought this?!" she hissed, then turned to Damian and threw the bag into his arms. "Is this yours?!"

It was teddy bear in a welded plastic bag, Tim realized all of sudden. Damian too, for he turned a deep shade of red and dropped the stuffed animal with a fervent shake of his head.

"I believe that is Miss Lian's Get-well-Teddy," Alfred spoke up suddenly, brow furrowed. "Miss Leslie, what is the meaning of this?"

Tim recognized the poor little fellow that had dutifully held vigil at Dick's bedside since Roy and his daughter had visited. Dick had explained that Lian believed her teddy to have magic powers and therefore gave it to sick people... and then he got what was going on.

The relief was almost as big as their stupidity.

"Whoever this belongs to," Leslie was fuming now, "it had been with someone with chicken pox recently."

He was going to kill Harper, right after Tim found a way to kick himself in the butt for not thinking about it. Of course Lian had given the teddy to other people she knew, and why not to a kid with chicken pox? Dick's new immune system was as strong as a newborn's, which meant that he had to get vaccinated for illnesses like polio or hepatitis again and had no antibodies for childhood diseases like measles any more.

"Chicken pox?" Bruce hissed suddenly, targeting Leslie. "You scared the hell out of us just because of chicken pox?!"

Leslie all but exploded in his face, and woah, suddenly Tim understood why Dick never brought even one word of displeasure with his treatment regime over his lips when she was present. There weren't many people that managed to set the Batman straight, and only Alfred and Leslie could do so without even blinking.

"Yes, just chicken pox, Bruce!" she yelled. "Do you have any idea what kind of catastrophe that is for this hospital?! We can't have nurses walking around spreading VZV*, you big dork!"

Damian and Tim had both taken a few more steps back and looked at each other with expressions that might have been funny if the situation wasn't so scary. They should be either relieved that Dick hadn't relapsed or worry about the possible complications of the chicken pox, but right now they were too distracted by the view of Bruce I'm-Batman Wayne being chewed out by a woman two heads shorter. Tim was pretty sure that Leslie had a lot more disgracing expressions up her sleeve than 'dork', and Bruce didn't seem to know how to stop her any time soon.

Thank God for Alfred. He stepped up to save his former ward and put a calming, soothing hand on Leslie's shoulder. Disgruntled, she glared one last time at the shell-shocked Bruce and then turned her attention to the butler exclusively.

"Miss Leslie, please. We can assure you that none of us wished for this to happen." – Tim and Damian both nodded frantically when Alfred shot them a glare – "But I fear I don't understand why you are so agitated. Chicken pox isn't such a dangerous disease, is it?"

Leslie sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Usually it's not. But in adults it can become dangerous, with other diseases following the original infection, and Dick isn't strong enough to fight them."

"What other diseases?" Bruce engaged into the conversation again, now clearly worried but composed again. "How is he?"

"Pneumonia, encephalitis, hepatitis,... the chances aren't high, but I'd rather not risk it. He's as well as can be expected right now, the fever knocked him out a few hours ago."

No, they really shouldn't risk it. Dick couldn't even stay awake when he had a fever. Tim remembered his own chicken pox episode – he had been in his early teens then, which was already late for a childhood disease. To him it hadn't been more than an itchy nuisance, but he remembered his parents and private doctors worrying over follow-up infections. Nothing had happened, but then again he hadn't had cancer, chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplantation on his plate. Dick really didn't need another illness on his, especially not one that could turn out dangerous.

"But it's unlikely to happen, right?" Alfred asked, worry radiating off him in waves.

"We discovered it early, so we are prepared. Under surveillance we should be able to fend off everything..." Leslie's words were reassuring, but she wasn't happy, something else was bothering her. Tim let go of a breath he had been holding nonetheless and was sure that every other member of the family was doing the same.

"So there is no actual problem?"

Leslie turned to Bruce again. "That's exactly the problem. We can't have steady surveillance here. The virus spreads so easily, and we can't have nurses walking around with it. We have newborns and immunosuppressive patients here, kids that visit,.. it's too dangerous."

"Isn't that what the isolation unit is for?"

"I.U. is undermanned right now. Also, I don't think you want him to wake up in the isolation unit again..."

Tim shuddered involuntarily. He really didn't want Dick to come to, surrounded by white masks and gloves again, with visitors only allowed to walk through the glass door system fully dressed in white hygienic suits. If Tim had already associated white masks with relapse, Dick would probably have a heart attack.

"What are you saying, Leslie? I can pay for staff."

"Bruce, we can't risk a VZV expansion, and it's so easily spread. I don't want to put him into isolation again, not when he's just starting to recover from the trauma."

"You want us to take him home, Miss Leslie."

"Yes. You are more than competent to look after him," Leslie smiled at Alfred sadly. "We can hospitalize him at the first sign of complication, or I could check up on him daily. I think that's the best solution."

Bruce wasn't convinced. "You just told us about the complication and now you want him out of steady surveillance?"

"We keep him here if you insist, of course. But I have to consider the well-being of my other patients, too."

"We can have him in an isolated section of the hospital, with staff I'll hire especially to work with him."

"That's not so much different from taking him home," Tim thought out loud, making the adults turn towards him. "We have all the equipment we need at home, and I think the change of scenery would do him good."

Dick was going crazy with being locked up in a room. Sure, he wasn't as eager for physiotherapy or exerting himself as he used to be after injury, but Tim really thought that getting back home was a major psychological help on his big brother's road to recovery. Dick had been in hospital now for more than three months straight, and an outpatient for even longer. It was time to get him away.

"We planned to take him back in one or two weeks anyway," Alfred argued.

"If things were going according to plan!" Bruce growled, but sighed afterwards. "Are we really ready for this? Alfred, you know what we had planned for next week."

Right. Bruce had to go to some business conference in California again. He had tried to get out of it until Barbara had found a trace that linked the photos of Dick that kept appearing in the Blüdhaven's News to a small town in California, not far from where the conference was going to be.

They needed to stop those photos before they became front page news and made their way to Gotham. Tim felt nauseous when he thought about the reaction of Gotham's boulevard media, which had just recently stopped trying to pester more information about Dick's recovery out of them. Every hint Babs and Jason managed to get about the photographer came up empty, while the new photos wound their ways through the internet, impossible to track down. The California link was the best shot they had had in a long while.

"Have you had chicken pox before, Damian?" Bruce asked suddenly, turning their attention to the youngest member of the family who had been completely quiet for the whole conversation.

Damian didn't know much about medicine or illnesses thanks to his family's upbringing. The al Ghuls didn't have to deal with sickness or even death, they could just use a Lazarus Pit. The whole situation must be extremely scary for the boy, who slowly shook his head now.

Tim groaned inwardly and Alfred and Bruce exchanged a meaningful glance. With Bruce gone, Robin and Red Robin would have to patrol Gotham again. Damian couldn't get sick, too, therefore. He would have to stay away from Dick until he wasn't contagious any more, and with Tim needing to sleep for most of the day to be fit for the nights, the brunt of looking after Dick would fall on Alfred.

And Alfred had made it absolutely clear that he wouldn't risk Dick's wellbeing ever again. Alfred had taken the blame on himself after they had found Dick, unconscious and bleeding, on the bathroom floor months ago. He could have died back then, bleeding out or asphyxiating from the blood he was puking, all because they had been too busy to look after him properly. They had come to realize that they had made a collective mistake quickly, but Alfred had taken it the hardest – he had been there when it happened, in the Batcave, just two floors away from Dick's room.

"Master Jason has had chicken pox," Alfred remembered with an amused smile. "I've never heard a child his age swear like that."

"Do you think he'll come to the Manor?"

Bruce had a point; even though Jason was beginning to get along with Bruce too, visiting the Manor would probably still be a no go. Too many memories, too many old wounds. But then again, Tim was pretty sure that Jason would try to help Dick – he had surprised them all before, after all.

"I'll call him," he said therefore and rummaged his pockets for his mobile phone.

"I'll make the arrangements," Leslie hurried away without a further word.

Damian was staring at them, uncomprehending. Tim felt a bit bad for the boy, but there really hadn't been time to explain. He nudged Bruce's arm therefore, motioning for the boy when the man turned to him.

While the phone was ringing, Tim tried to think about what they had to take care of now: they'd probably stop the artificial feeding as soon as the fever was down again, so they had to remove the catheter and convince Dick to eat properly again. They needed to prepare a room at the Manor, get all the equipment they needed from the medbay up the stairs. They needed to prepare a transportation without letting the media see what was going on...

So much to think about, and Tim had the ominous feeling that things were just starting.

Jason

-A few days later-

Jason climbed through the window, registering with pleasure that the replacement had spoken the truth when he promised the security would be off. Even with Bruce far away in another state and Alfred down in the Batcave to help the Bat Brats in Gotham, Jason still preferred not to walk through the front door.

It was irrational and stupid, also he suspected it to be emotional, but Jason just didn't want to take a part in the Manor's everyday life. Too much had happened here, and he didn't need an audience when he was confronted with the memories. The hospital had been perfect – neutral ground, common interest to see Dick well and alive. The few roof top meetings in Gotham hadn't worked out all that great, and so Jay wasn't thrilled when he had heard about the plans to bring Dickiebird home. Now he had to come up with something to explain his sudden absence, even though Dick was probably smart enough to figure it out and aware enough to be hurt by it. It sucked.

He didn't want to come, even after Tim had called with the (seriously amusing) chicken pox news. Alfred would be doing a fine job regardless of what he himself thought, Jason was sure of it, and Dick was out of it most of the time anyway. He had only relented now because Timothy had called today again and made his bad conscience act up again. So now here he was – only the man of the day was missing.

"Dick?" Jason called, standing in the room a bit confused. It was full of heavy medical machinery Bruce had hauled upstairs for any emergency (and Jason really meant any emergency, judged by the amount of technology he had never even seen before), but the big hospital bed was empty. There was light in the adjacent room.

Jason smirked at the familiar situation and walked over to the bathroom door with a few quick strides. The door wasn't closed, so he just opened it and leaned in the doorframe nonchalantly, observing the scene. Ah, memories.

"We have to stop meeting like this."

Dick opened his eyes slowly, lifting his head from where it had leaned against the bathtub. "Jay."

"You look like shit," Jason couldn't help but point out with a snort, because really, he did. Jason was used to the paleness now, but it was amplified by the new shock of raven hair on Dick's head Jay was still kind of unused to. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the red spots all over his face didn't help.

"Feeling like it, too," was the weak reply that brought Jason back to the situation at hand. Dick was still sick, even if it wasn't cancer any more. The chicken pox had thrown him back again; for every two steps Dick made on the road of his recovery, he was thrown back one.

Jason walked over to where Dick was sitting on the floor, leaning against the tub. He was shivering, only wearing PJs. "I don't think you're supposed to be out of bed. Did Alfred force you to eat again?" A quick glance into the toilet bowl answered that question, eww. He flushed the toilet.

"He's evil," Dick whined, leaning his forehead back against the tub. Feverish, most likely.

"How did you even make it to the bathroom on your own?" Jason asked. Alfred would have a fit if he knew, but to Jay it actually seemed like good news: it had been a long time since Dick was able to walk anywhere, let alone without hours of cajoling.

Dick wasn't going to answer him, apparently. He had closed his eyes again and shuffled into a more comfortable position. "I like the tub," he announced instead and yeah, definitely feverish. "The tub's cool."

"Let's get you back to bed," Jason chose not to ask if that had been a terrible pun or not and shook Dick to make him pay attention. "Can you walk or do I have to carry you?"

The question had the desired effect – Dick's eyes flew open and he grabbed Jason's hand to get up. Despite all the two of them had been through together, Dick still hated it to be carried around like a Disney Princess. Jason had dutifully co-complained when it had happened, though he secretly preferred to simply carry Dick; it was faster and safer, and Dick didn't weight more than an actual Disney Princess. If possible he tried to let him save his vain pride, only helping to steady him like now.

His brother was leaning on him heavily, swaying dizzily, and Jason tried to ignore how much he looked like he had during the early chemo days, when he hadn't had to shave his head yet. Instead, he decided to focus on the one difference: chicken pox, heh.

"So, chicken pox, huh?"

"...Ugh..shut up, Jay."

"I'm surprised you're even awake. With all those serious illnesses you have going on."

Dick rubbed a hand over his eyes, blinking to chase away the dizziness. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Dude," Jason carefully made the first step towards the door, and Dick stumbled after him. "I've watched you sleep for weeks now. It's not that exciting."

Jason knew that he had said something wrong when there wasn't an immediate witty comeback. He tried to check if things were all right furtively, but found that Dick was looking at him somewhat guiltily; big blue eyes were peeking up at him, radiating culpability.

"I know. Sorry," Dick mumbled, slowly, and Jason panicked and tried to act as if nothing happened.

"I'm surprised Alfred didn't glue oven mitts over your hands."

Shit, what had that been? Was Dick coherent enough already to find some way to blame himself? Or was the fever talking? Jason wanted to shake his brother's shoulders and knock this stupid, Batman-induced habit out of him, but then he'd probably knock him unconscious. Hrmph.

"Like he had to do with you?"

"He told you that!?" Goddamnit, Alf!

"He tells me a lot of things to distract me from what I want to know."

Jason winced inwardly. Shit. They had reached the bed by now, and Dick sank down on it with a sigh. Jason threw the blanket over him roughly, but it didn't have the desired effect of engaging his brother in a distracting argument.

"You're not going to tell me either, are you?" Dick pouted and grabbed the remote control to elevate the bed end.

"No, I'm not going to piss off the Big Guy."

"One of the sentences I never thought I'd hear from Jason Peter Todd."

Jason smirked weakly and thought about the small package he carried around in one of his pockets, which was going to contradict everything he had just said a thousandfold.

"Seriously, what do you want to know? Bruce is out of town, I'm patrolling 'Haven. Tim and Damian are taking care of Gotham by night; Tim has to study for his summer school during the day and Damian can't enter your room without getting infected. Alfred would have a stroke if he had to take care of both of you."

"Can you imagine Damian with chicken pox?" Dick was grinning, then suddenly he frowned and looked sad. "Tim dropped out of the school term because of me."

"Yeah," Jason really didn't know what else to say. Timothy was studying right now to get into some dainty summer school, which would enable him to get his high school diploma in only a few months instead of having to redo the whole school year. Apart from costing half a fortune, it would still be too late to apply for colleges this year.

So Dick was guiltily aware of that, too. Jason's thoughts returned to the package. When he had found his brother in the bathroom, he had decided not to give it to him. Dick needed to be aware enough to understand its implications. Now, safe and sound in bed, Dick made a much clearer and coherent impression.

"Why do you worry about his school term, you don't even know what day it is – let alone which month."

It was a cheap trick, but Dick actually fell for it. His brow furrowed as he tried to concentrate. "I think it's... Thursday? March...ish."

"Close enough."

It was Tuesday, but how should Dick know? They hadn't given him a calendar out of fear of having him tumbling into a depression, and as far as Jason knew Dick was still prone to fever bouts and tiredness that made him sleep for days. He was surprised to see him that awake... and who knew when else he would get the opportunity.

Jason grabbed the package and handed it to Dick. He simply left out the 'happy birthday'.

"What's that?" Curiously, Dick snatched the package out of his hands. Jason had to smile; Dick was probably craving for distractions.

The paper was ripped off in seconds, and then his brother gasped.

"Don't have a stroke, okay?"

"Jason. That's a gun."

"Nailed it," Jason was acting nonchalantly, but warily watched how Dick paled. "It's loaded, be careful."

"A gun! In the Manor!?"

Oh, he was going to be bitchy about it. Jason rolled his eyes and strolled towards the window, snatching a cigarette out of his pockets. He glared back at Dick, who was trying to look equally mad (which totally didn't work out with the red spots all over his face and the messy curls on his head), and who now grumbled and pulled the blanket closer around him. Pleased, Jason pulled the window open and lit his cigarette. They had perfected those wordless conversations soon after Jason had come to Blüdhaven.

"Don't have a hissy fit, Dick." He sat onto the window ledge and blew smoke into the cold night. "It's for protection."

"Protection?!" Dick's brow furrowed as he unloaded the gun with a few professional flicks of the wrist.

"You aren't able to protect yourself if anything happens. And I know it bothers you, you told me after chemo." It had been one of the bad ones, when Jason had to practically carry Dick up the stairs. His brother had been a lot weaker than before, and the tiredness had always made his brain-mouth filter porous.

Dick's gaze wandered through the room, trying to remember. His memory was still blurry and incoherent, a sign that this current state of wellbeing was probably only a phase. Jason had watched Dick going through excessive illness and treatment regimes long enough to know better than to trust single bouts of energy.

"Bruce is gone most of the time and so are the Baby Bats. I'm in Blüdhaven more often than not. It's only a matter of time until the journalists will get that you're back, and then it'll be front page news."

"So what?" Dick asked, blissfully unaware of what was going on.

Someone was publishing photos of him in tabloid magazines, while they had no idea who might have taken them. The journalists were getting more insolent each day. Tim usually gave short interviews to keep them at bay, but they were getting more and more aggressive. At first they had decided to show a modicum of sympathy for the mourning family, but now, with Dick officially on the mend, Gotham's corruption was coming through again. And Freeze had tried to escape Arkham.

Jason couldn't tell him any of this.

"Just keep it. You don't have to use it."

"I won't need it, Jay. Gosh, if Bruce finds out..."

"What if people hear you moved back and someone tries to kidnap you? That happened before, didn't it?"

Dick rolled his eyes, remembering his Boy Hostage days. "Yeah, but – "

"You're a cop, you know how to use it. Just keep it for emergencies."

He knew he had struck a chord with the 'you're a cop' phrase. Bruce had never gotten that, and there had been millions of arguments between the Golden Child and the Big Guy. And Jason knew about arguments with Bruce; they made you feel underappreciated and worthless.

Dick was silently debating, turning the gun around in his hands. The thing was that Dick really knew how to use a gun, and Jason always found Bruce's obsession to keep his kids away from them stupid. Guns were the ultimate means to protect oneself – they were light, worked far-range or close-range, and invoked maximal fear. You didn't need to shoot it to make use of it.

Thankfully, Dick had arrived at the same conclusion, since he reloaded the weapon with a deep sigh and opened a drawer next to his bed to dump it in.

"I'm not going to cover for you when Bruce finds out," he warned, but what could have been a really scary threat was interrupted by a heart-wrenching yawn. Dick still grew tired so quickly, and the gun had surely cost him a lot of energy.

Jason flipped his cigarette out of the window and marched back into the room.

"Do you need anything?" He asked while he pressed the remote control's button and changed the bed into a horizontal position again.

"No, thanks," his brother stifled another yawn. "Just make the room stop spinning, please?"

Jason shot him a careful look. He really didn't need to worry about his stupid big brother shooting at Alfred in a fever pitch or something like that. He had been serious with the gun-for-protection, but he was not going to risk any accidents thanks to misjudging Dick's condition.

Dick's eyes snapped open when Jason placed a hand over his forehead. Ah, another déja vu. Like the last time, Dick didn't seem pleased by the action, but Jason was relieved to feel only a slightly higher temperature.

"Can everyone please stop doing that?" Dick complained grumpily and tried to bat his hand away, and Jason grinned when he heard the first slurred syllables. Dick was already half-asleep.

"Touching someone who got chicken pox twice brings luck," he declared and chuckled at Dick's unamused expression and the rolling eyes. "It's rare, you know?"

"Hey, Jay?" Dick's voice was getting quieter, so Jason leaned closer to hear it. "My curtains are on fire."

Yup, half-asleep and half-dreaming. With an affiliation for fevers.

"Of course they are," he answered therefore, sober, and patted Dick's hand as a good bye.

"No, really. Your cigarette butt must have ignited them."

Jason turned around and was cursing in six different languages immediately. Two nanoseconds later, he was trying not to burn his hands and ignore Dick's stupid comments about water pistols.

-fin-

*VZV = Varicella Zoster Virus, is the mean little virus that is responsible for chickenpox, shingles, and other forms of herpes. It usually enters the body of kids and causes chickenpox, but in about 20% of cases does the virus stay in the body and reactivates later to cause other infections.

Leslie's reaction might come as a surprise to some of you. Since VZV and chickenpox are so easily spread but can cause so much harm (immune suppressed patients (chemo, AIDS, Lupus,...) can die because of the most harmless infection), she decided that Dick would be in safe hands at home as soon as the initial fever is over. Hospitals tend to deal with infectious disease very differently; in Germany it's a common procedure to send patients with 'lesser' infectious disease home when they're not in ultimate danger anymore, because it's too easy to infect a hospital (worse place ever if you want to stay healthy!). And hey, this is the batfamily we're talking about. Alfred can do open heart surgery for all I know ;

Sooo that was the last installment of the intermission story. The stage is set; we have the gun, the protagonist back home, the potential media scandal and a busy batfamily... I plan to upload the sequel next week, two weeks tops, so see you then!